Birthday
by Chronos Keeper
Summary: Birthdays done at the Strider residence, and all the paranoia that comes with them.


In his dreams, no matter what they were, everything smelled like ashes and sulfur. And just as his older brother looked over his shoulder, face bathed in that angry red like some weeping wound, his face began to gray under the crimson patina, and he opened his mouth to speak. Ashes scattered from his cracked lips, clinging and tumbling down his chin, as he said, "You know I'll always-"

"Happy birthday, Dave. Would you like to play a game?"

The low, distorted voice was the equivalent of shooting the morning from a canon. Dave bolted upright in bed, already fully awake before his eyes could correspondingly open. The Saw doll sat comfily at the end of his bed, wide, glassy eyes fixed directly on him, propped up by only God knew what. Its head was canted slightly, as if it really were waiting for a response.

Dave and the doll traded stares for a while.

Finally, when no other quip was forthcoming, he let out a gusty breath. Holy shit, that was the worst way to wake up ever. Except maybe for waking up with Cal sitting at the end of his bed. That pretty much would have sealed the deal between him and a potentially embarassing full bladder.

Okay, so he had to admit, that was pretty much a great shit your pants moment. Dave mentally credited his brother's creativity as he scrubbed his hands across his face, trying to shake off the lingering smell of nightmare fuel. As he shifted to get out of bed, the doll lolled off to one side, revealing that there was a plain brown box that had been serving as a prop, with a sheet of white paper attached.

Now halfway out of bed, Dave regarded it, and weighed the possibilities.

Generally, his brother had a really great sense of equilibrium. Scaring the shit out of someone could verge on the sadistic if you took it too far, and bro was acutely aware of that. On the other hand, Dave was pretty much used to this kind of treatment, so he was never really sure where his brother drew the line on this crazy fucking prank train. Option a.) this box was yet another prank, and housed something that would make Dave late for school because he'd peed on the rug like a puppy. Option b.) this box was actually a birthday present.

He hated these conundrums. If he guessed wrong, he felt stupid and vulnerable, or stupid and cynical. So there pretty much was no safe ground.

So Dave batted the doll off the bed with an offhanded swipe, privately enjoying the painful sounding clatter it made as its various limbs made contact with the floor, and scooched down the bed to sit roughly arm's length away from it. The sheet of paper on the top had Bro's cramped scrawl there, and Dave was momentarily blindsided with the last image of his brother in his dream, standing amid a city of scaffolding, ashes plucked from his mouth as he looked at Dave.

He shook his head. Stay with it, Strider, forget the dreams. Dreams are for pussies and crazies, and you ain't neither. You're the hottest shit to walk in shoe leather. If his shoes were made of leather and not rubber and canvas, he supposed. The box continued to sit innocently just out of reach for Dave, and Dave out of harm's way for it.

He snagged the paper off the top of the box, deciding it probably wasn't going to set off some elaborate series of shitstorms. The apartment remained silent, so Dave chalked one up for himself. The paper simply read, "Happy birthday, bro." He opened it up, and was taken aback by the wash of lines and colors. It was a piece of his brother's art, done in various blazing colors, depicting a kid about his age decked out in sweet gear at some mixing tables, tongues of fire surrounding him, and if he looked closely, orange feathers forming out of the inferno, following the same lines as the columns of fire. It was meticulously done, along the same quality of stuff bro sometimes submitted for publishing.

Pretty fuckin' sweet. Best card ever.

Dave carefully propped it right side up against the fake police light near the head of his bed. And allowed himself a very small smile at the gift.

So all that remained to tackle was the box. Dave gave it a look out of the corner of his eye. It squatted at the edge of his bed, the morning light beginning to bring out the ribbing of corrugated cardboard just underneath the paper. He glanced at the clock; he had another forty minutes before he had to even get dressed, so bro must have set this up knowing how Dave would react. Fucker was crazy. Crazy like a fox. And pretty goddamn mean, because he robbed Dave of a good forty minutes of shut eye when he could have done this the easy way and just left it out like any other normal human being on the kitchen counter for him to find.

But his brother always did enjoy fucking with him. And Dave liked it, too. He anticipated the look-

-of tired, muted despair, stark lines hugging his brother's eyes, ashes puffing-

-what?

He blinked, and shook his head to knock loose the intrusive imagery. Jesus, he really needed to get up. And lay off the sci-fi movie marathons before he went to bed. He struggled to push down the nagging thought that none of the shit he watched was about an apocalyptic world where people faded into ash as he untangled himself from his blanket. The box gravitated toward a dangerous angle off the side of his bed with the violence of his flailing, and he was forced to reach out and slap a hand on it to keep it from launching. It felt kind of heavy. He wondered if Bro stuffed it with bricks.

He did resist the urge to open it and get it over with. Poking about his room to find clothes allowed him to get a look at it from different angles, and by the time he pulled a shirt over his head, he decided bro limited his mind games to a very creepy alarm clock. Now that he thought about it, how did he get it to deviate from the crap it was preprogrammed to say? Much less address Dave specifically and with proper occassion. It seemed like bro actually put a bit of thought into these shenanigans.

Hell with it.

Dave leaned over the box, and pulled open the flaps that had been folded so that they would tuck under each other in a boxy spiral. Inside were several records couched in books, a few plastic bags poked between the books and fragile records to stop any kind of fatal inanimate interspecies contact. He pulled out one of the books, and noted the title as 'Fellowship of the Ring.' Oh, hey, wasn't that the title of the movie that Egbert was banging on about a while ago? Two of the other books looked to be companion volumes of the first, and a few other books were an odd assortment of topics. Plus a pack of developing paper. Aw, yeah. Some of the really expensive stuff, too. Not the kind to shit around with.

The records were recent titles that both he and bro had listened to the demos at the record store. He remembered the two of them each holding an earpiece of the headset, bro bending low to accommodate the height imbalance. The solid beat had possessed them both, and they spent most of the afternoon bopping to the few demo tracks listed. For a small second, Dave was pleased and even touched that bro remembered the experience, but quickly squelched it, instead opting to make an inner comment that these were some sick presents. He almost closed up the box before he caught sight of something under the plastic bags.

Rooting around, he unearthed a last gift within the box. It was a small plush of Cans, the gigantic member of the Felt from the Midnight Crew arc on MSP.

Well. He was alone. (And hopefully without any added webcams, although there seemed to be an unspoken agreement that they stayed the hell out of Dave's room. If anything, bro seemed way more disturbed at the idea than Dave thought he would be, when he brought it up jokingly some time ago.)

He hugged the plush, burying his face against the insanely soft felt material. How goddamn appropriate. And cuddly.

No one will ever know. He propped the pugnacious creature against his pillows, and shifted the box off his lap so he could stand.

As he made his way into the hall, his iPhone in his pocket sounded. Man, he couldn't even wake up without the masses hailing him to voice their joy of his existence. In fact-

Wait, that wasn't his normal ringtone. '

Dave rooted around until the noisy device was securely in hand, and he pulled it out. A text message from his brother.

He opened it, silencing the admittedly sweet beats, to read, "Hey, dude. Enjoy the beatz. French toast in microwave. See you after school." Which meant that the man himself wasn't in. Not that he expected a birthday greet in person; his bro was keeping odd hours lately, for reasons that weren't clear to Dave, and bro refused to clarify, anyway.

Oh, hey, that meant bro made the track that his phone was using as a ringtone. Still walking, he flipped through his phone to check it out. It was listed as 'bday beatz'. Dave rocked out to it a little as he shoved puppets and cd cases out from under his feet and into the living room.

Li'l Cal was no where immediately in sight, which kind of put Dave on edge. God only knew what bro had done with him, up to and including putting him somewhere that he could fall upon an unsuspecting boy. The living room was relatively tidy, bereft of roaming puppets and empty food containers as it happened to be. However, the microwave was indeed full to the brim of French toast, and Dave set about dousing it in the syrup his brother had helpfully left out. He ate at the counter, phone still playing bro's track- the thing went on for four minutes, and kept layering, so Dave didn't get tired of it as he made his way through the mountain of carbohydrates.

As usual, he dawdled long enough to be late on his walk to school. Belly full and thinking of his presents, he scooped up his backback without looking at it, adjusting his shades. As he adjusted it, he felt the unusual bulkiness of it. Dave hefted the pack, trying to figure out if it was in his mind or- no, there was definitely something going on with it.

He put it back down on the floor, and bent to reopen it. As soon as he pulled apart the zippers, something popped out like it was spring loaded and tripping balls. Dave yelped and swore, stumbling backwards.

Li'l Cal grinned his impish, blank grin at Dave, his entire posture the epitome of a kind of brainless, "surprise!" gesture. Attached to his shirt by a safety pin was a note, and Dave again recognized his brother's scrawl.

Again, two words, but this time squished for convenience into one simple phrase.

"Gotcha." 


End file.
